Yikes. If any of you are truly interested in helping out an actual needy, deserving family, please PM me. I have been helping out a woman I used to work with as much as I can but she needs more than I can give. She is a single mother with an extraordinarily gifted and driven daughter who is now 16 years old. My friend is an extremely low-paid administrative assistant who works as much overtime as she can manage but it's still not enough. Her daughter was always a straight A student but recently her grades crashed due to all the stress in their lives (eviction from their Aliso Viejo apartment due to problems caused by the father, deaths in the family, etc.) Well, this woman is a role model mother for me and she managed to work with her daughter to get her grades back up, her karate back on track (she is a black belt), and her dance team involvement back on track. The teachers for both karate and dance allow the daughter to attend for free, and have done so for years, for the same reason I have been helping out when I can - they recognize this girl is very special and are trying to make sure she is able to make something of herself. This family is African-American and I have been riding my friend to push her daughter hard to search for scholarship money...I would think that a brilliant, talented, impoverished young black woman would be highly sought-after by many universities willing to pay her way. At least, I really hope so.
